Nobel Prize in Medicine for discoveries of genome in extinct species
Copenhagen, Oct 3 (EFE).- The Nobel Prize in Medicine 2022 is for the Swede Svante Paabo for his discoveries on the genome of extinct hominids and human evolution, the Nobel Assembly of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm reported Monday.
Pääbo has established “an entirely new scientific discipline, paleogenomics. By revealing the genetic differences that distinguish all living humans from extinct hominins, his discoveries provide the basis for exploring what makes us uniquely human,” the Swedish Institute said.
The laureate “discovered that gene transfer had occurred from these now-extinct hominins to Homo sapiens. This ancient gene flow for present-day humans has physiological relevance today, for example by affecting how our immune systems react to infections.”
The Karolinska Institute said the winner “achieved something apparently impossible: sequencing the genome of the Neanderthal, an extinct relative of modern humans.”
“He also made the sensational discovery of an extinct hominin, the Denisovan, entirely from genome data recovered from a little finger bone sample,” Karolinska said.
The Nobel Prize for Medicine is the first of the round of these prestigious prizes, which will be followed by the announcements on successive days of Physics, Chemistry, Literature, Peace and finally Economics on Monday.
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